Sustainability reporting is a global trend that engages companies in disclosure of their overall economic, environmental and social impacts and efforts. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is the most popular sustainability reporting framework used today. At the current stage, it is primarily large companies that get involved in sustainability reporting practices. Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) despite of their significant impacts in the European economy, employment and environment show low level of engagement.
On the other hand, the environmental management standard ISO 14001 has gained global popularity over the last decade among companies of any size and sector. Therefore this research seeks to investigate the connection between ISO 14001 and GRI in order to get an insight into how ISO 14001 certified SMEs can use their existing knowledge and experiences for the purposes of sustainability reporting.
The research uses as a point of departure a comparison between the implementation processes and requirements/principles in ISO 14001 and GRI. It investigates the existing practices of the ISO 14001 certified company Brunata in Bulgaria in order to draw conclusions on how they can be transferred to sustainability reporting in order to facilitate an easier GRI implementation process for SMEs.